James Oleson

A random study of Staff Training Aimed at Reducing Re-arrest (STARR): using core correctional practices in probation interactions

The recent application of the risk–need–responsivity (RNR) model, in conjunction with core correctional practices, has offered promising results. In the present study, supervision officers were trained in core correctional skills and the RNR model. Supervision officers were randomly assigned to training groups and provided audio recordings of interactions with clients to assess their use of learned skills. The current study utilizes taped interactions between officers and offenders, individual-level offender data, and outcome/recidivism data to investigate the impact of the training regimen, which is the core focus of this paper. Trained probation officers demonstrated greater use of the skills taught during training and their clients had lower failure rates. These findings suggest that providing Staff Training Aimed at Reducing Re-arrest (STARR) training to community supervision officers can impact the officers’ use of important correctional skills and improve client outcomes.

Actuarial and clinical assessment of criminogenic needs: identifying supervision priorities among federal probation officers

The science and methodology of offender assessment have undergone distinct and increasingly rapid changes over the last several decades. The field of corrections is currently well into the ‘third generation’ of actuarial assessment development, and instruments that utilize both static and dynamic predictors are commonplace. Despite the existence of some well-established risk/need assessment tools, improvements can be made regarding predictive validity (not to mention predictive strength). In addition, work needs to be done regarding the application of these tools. Regardless of how well these instruments work in the ‘laboratory’, tests need to be done to insure that they really are aiding practitioners in the identification of the relevant need factors for targeting and intervention. The current research examines the need for a new third-generation tool developed onUS federal probation clients, by examining the ability of probation officers to identify criminogenic needs.

The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Sentencing in Two Federal Districts

While a substantial body of research indicates that legal variables, such as offense severity and criminal history, principally shape sentencing decisions, other studies demonstrate that extralegal factors such as race, gender, and age influence sentencing outcomes, as well. The handful of studies focusing upon the effect of pretrial detention/release on sentencing outcomes indicate that pretrial detention is associated with greater lengths of incarceration. This study—the first to empirically examine the sentencing consequences of pretrial detention in the United States federal courts—employed a sample of 1,723 cases from two district courts (New Jersey and Pennsylvania Eastern). Pretrial detention and, to a lesser degree, revocation of granted pretrial supervision were associated with increased prison sentences; on the other hand, successfully completing a term of pretrial services supervision was associated with shorter sentence length. Implications for the federal criminal justice system are discussed.

Habitual criminal legislation in New Zealand: three years of three-strikes

Habitual felon legislation is not new, but during the last 20 years it has become a powerful instrument of penal populism. Since passage of Californias landmark 1994 three-strikes initiative, more than 100,000 offenders have been incarcerated in that state, contributing to prison crowding so serious that, in 2011, in Brown v. Plata, the United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its prison population by 46,000 persons. While the Californian three-strikes law is unusually draconian, habitual offender legislation also has been enacted in Australia and, more recently, in New Zealand. While little official data are available about New Zealand’s three-strikes law, preliminary analysis indicates that minority groups are overrepresented in the three-strikes population, and that three-strikes demographics resemble those of the New Zealand general prison population.

The Sentencing Consequences of Federal Pretrial Supervision

Legal variables, such as offense severity and criminal history, principally shape sentencing decisions, but extralegal factors such as race, gender, and age also influence sentencing outcomes. Studies focusing on the effect of pretrial detention on sentencing outcomes usually associate pretrial detention with negative sentencing outcomes. The current study followed 90,037 federal defendants from indictment through sentencing, and measured the effects of pretrial detention on sentencing decisions. Detention (and, to a lesser degree, revocation of pretrial release) was associated with increased likelihood of receiving a prison sentence and greater sentence length, even when controlling for offense severity and criminal history scores.

Self-Reported Violent Offending Among Subjects with Genius-Level IQ Scores

While research indicates offenders have IQ scores approximately eight points below the population average of 100, very little is known about the crimes of individuals with above-average IQ scores. The current research is not limited to acts of family violence, but it describes the self-reported offending of 465 high-IQ subjects for eight violent crimes: robbery, carrying a concealed weapon, making a serious threat, serious assault, homicide, constructing an explosive device, kidnapping, and attempting suicide. Rates of prevalence and incidence are reported and compared to the rates from a control group of 756 individuals with average IQ scores. High-IQ subjects reported higher rates of prevalence, incidence, and arrest, but lower levels of conviction, than controls. A significant positive correlation exists for offenders between IQ score and lifetime incidence rate for robbery, homicide, and kidnapping, and a significant negative correlation exists between IQ score and incidence of attempted suicide.

A Decoupled System: Federal Criminal Justice and the Structural Limits of Transformation

The United States federal criminal justice system is changing. Actuarial risk assessment instruments and evidence-based practices play increasingly important roles; federal reentry court programs have been implemented across the country. Yet, while promising, these developments may not be enough to stem the growth and costs of federal criminal justice. The highly politicized nature of crime and punishment may limit the potential for change. Even within the federal criminal justice system, the decoupled nature of bureaucracies, in which stakeholders make decisions for which they are not financially responsible, makes meaningful change problematic. States, however, have demonstrated that structural changes can foster efficient use of resources and improve fiscal stewardship. A number of statutory, structural, and procedural modifications could help to reorganize a continuum of fragmented bureaucracies into a cohesive federal reentry-centered system.

Sentencing Theories, Practices, and Trends

New Zealand and jurisdictions in Australia have undertaken a number of sentencing reforms in recent years. This chapter outlines the cornerstone goals of sentencing, describes the problem of sentencing disparity, and describes some of the legislative efforts parliamentarians have made to reduce disparity, including three strikes laws and other mandatory sentencing schemes, sentencing guidelines, and sentencing councils. The changing nature of modern sentencing is also described. Some jurisdictions are embracing actuarial, evidence-based sentencing, and many jurisdictions have established problem-solving courts such as drug courts.

Cate Curtis, Anti-social behaviour: A multi-national perspective of the everyday to the extremeCurtisCate, Anti-social behaviour: A multi-national perspective of the everyday to the extreme. Melbourne: SAGE, 2016; 120 pp. ISBN 9781473915770, £45.00 (hbk)

who may have been dead for centuries. Without the artist to say that she did, or did not, paint a particular work, the issue almost inevitably falls to be determined by circumstantial evidence – in the recent case of the Brett Whiteley forgeries, mentioned above, it was the late Whiteley’s ex-wife who gave evidence that the paintings did not appear to have come from his hand. Another site at which art crime cases are often contested is on the issue of the rightful ownership of works of art. Craig Forrest’s chapter provides an insight into how cases of disputed ownership are conducted and resolved. Finally, the book turns to survey international attempts to improve law enforcement in this particularly complex domain. Contributors reveal how the European Union, the USA, Canada and China take different approaches to the prevention and detection of art crime. One theme emerging from the chapters in this section is that in recent times, governments and international bodies are slowly moving towards a more systematic and organised approach to policing art crime, evidenced by the creation of the FBI’s Art Squad and similar specialised units in other countries. Yet, it is also clear that much more needs to be done, and more international cooperation needs to occur, to stamp out a species of crime that is truly international in its scope. Art crime is so interesting because it is a site at which two very different worlds intersect – the creative and the legal. All of this is explained, explored and critiqued from an impressive array of perspectives in these two recent publications in the burgeoning field of academia that shadows this fraught area of competing human endeavours.